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Sacred Headwaters

The Sacred Headwaters is the shared birthplace of three of B.C.’s most important wild salmon rivers: the Skeena, the Nass and the Stikine. Royal Dutch Shell plans to turn the Sacred Headwaters into a coalbed methane gas field scarred by a maze of wells, pipelines and roads.

The Sacred Headwaters is the shared birthplace of three of B.C.’s most important wild salmon rivers: the Skeena, the Nass and the Stikine. Royal Dutch Shell plans to turn the Sacred Headwaters into a coalbed methane gas field scarred by a maze of wells, pipelines and roads.

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The Sacred Headwaters is the shared birthplace of three of B.C.’s most important wild salmon rivers: the Skeena, the Nass and the Stikine. This remote alpine basin in northern B.C. is home to grizzly bears, wolves, moose, caribou, mountain sheep and other mammals that are part of the Spatsizi ecosystem, one of the largest intact predator-prey systems anywhere in North America. It is also home to the Tahltan First Nations, whose people have hunted and trapped in the Sacred Headwaters for millennia.

In 2004, Shell Canada (now Royal Dutch Shell) was awarded a 400,000 hectare tenure to develop coalbed methane (CBM) in the Sacred Headwaters in northwest British Columbia. The Sacred Headwaters was about to become a coalbed methane gas field scarred by a maze of wells, pipelines and roads. This sparked massive opposition throughout the region and province-wide. In August 2007, members of the Tahltan Nation and the Klabona Keepers blockaded the main access road to the Sacred Headwaters. Sierra Club BC and other environmental organizations took up the cause internationally.

In 2008, the B.C. government declared a four-year moratorium on oil and gas development in the Sacred Headwaters. The International League of Conservation Photographers visited the Sacred Headwaters in August 2011 to document what is at stake. Check out their photos. The Sacred Headwaters was also named the most endangered river in B.C., for the second year in a row, by the Outdoor Recreation Council. Learn more.

Finally, in December 2012, the B.C. government announced a permanent ban on oil and gas development in the Sacred Headwaters.

Shell Canada agreed to give up its rights to shale gas in the Sacred Headwaters, in part because it wanted to focus on its plans for fracking in northeastern B.C. In exchange, the B.C. government agreed to issue Shell $20-million in royalty credits, to be used by Shell to help build a new water recycling project, which will support its gas developments elsewhere in the province.

Despite the ban on oil and gas development, the Sacred Headwaters is still at risk of polluting mining projects, such as the proposed Red Chris mine, an Imperial Metals open-pit copper and gold mine. Coal mining proposals are also a concern.

"Shell Oil may be gone from our traditional lands, but new coal mining proposals are a major concern too," says Annita McPhee, President of Tahltan Central Council.

On Saturday July 11, Sierra Club BC will be paddling the Peace alongside youth and elders from Treaty 8 First Nations, third-generation Peace Valley farm families, resource industry workers, local government reps, and British Columbians from all over the province.

We are not even halfway through the Week to End Enbridge (Jun. 13-21) and already people all over B.C. have attended Pull Together events raising thousands for First Nations fighting Enbridge in courts.

Sierra Club BC’s Youth Environmental Leadership Program (YELP) have joined the Pull Together campaign and organized a fantastic musical double bill in support of First Nations legal challenges against Northern Gateway.